The DeadHouse

"Who's in control of this operation, Alex, you or this rude-?"

"Mike and I want to know exactly the same information. How did you spend that afternoon?"

"I, uh, I must have gone… I guess I left here early. I probably did some holiday shopping."

"Like Ms. Cooper tells the street mopes that sit in her office and lie to her all day, 'probably' and 'I guess' and 'I must have' don't cut it. This ain't ancient history, Mr. Frankel. It's one week ago this very day. When you and Fat Vi

"My daughter was coming home from college the next day. I went over to the mall to pick up a few gifts for my kids."

"What stores? I assume you can tell me what you bought and give me receipts for the things."

"You know, Detective, I'm the executive assistant district attorney for this county. You blow in here like you're auditioning for a bit part as a wise guy on The Sopranos. All bluff and bluster and bullshit, and I actually let you rattle me, like I have something to worry about. Well, you came to the wrong place this time. I supervised this investigation. I'm not the subject of it. Why don't you two just crawl back through the tu

"Did you drive Lola back to Manhattan with your own wheels, or did you use a government car to take her home?"

Frankel strode to the door of his office and opened it wide.

Mike got up from his chair as though to leave, then walked behind the desk. He leaned over and reached into the trash, removing from it the Kleenex-wrapped piece of gum that had been discarded when Frankel first brought us into the room. He held it up to the light and admired it as though it were a trophy.

"What the f-?"

"I'm sorry. Would you prefer that I have the office sealed off while Ms. Cooper gets us a search warrant to take your droppings? You a Wrigley's man? Or would you suggest we compare your underwear to the things we found in Lola's apartment? I'd say those size-forty shorts would fit him pretty well, don't you think, blondie?"

Frankel walked over to Chapman and grabbed the tissue from his hand without meeting any resistance. "You two must have lost your minds."

He was like an animal trapped in his own lair. He was patently unhappy with our presence, but afraid that we would walk out without telling him what we knew. Then he put his hand to his eyes and shook his head. "Or maybe I have."

He walked to the windowsill and sat on its edge. "Lola was desperately lonely. She was looking for somebody to cling to, some kind of safety net. I took her out a few times. Never here, in New Jersey, where anyone could see us. In the city, up near the college. I'm not married, if that's what you're thinking. I've been divorced for a couple of years."

"That wasn't my first thought," I said. "I actually wondered how you could get involved with a victim while her case was pending in your office."

"My shrink wants to know the same thing." He sat at his desk and again his fingers tapped steadily against the wooden top. "I had thought about calling you, Alex. I just couldn't pick up the phone to do it. I realize that it's selfish, but if I get myself in the middle of all this, I obviously have to walk out the door here. Give up my job. Make waves for the district attorney."

I was waiting for him to invoke his right to counsel. Like most lawyers, he was loath to do it, figuring-I was certain-that he was smarter than any young prosecutor and the average cop alone or in combination. I was trying to stay calm, wondering how Frankel could explain being with Lola in her apartment last Thursday afternoon, and how much we should consider him a suspect in her death.

He retraced his steps to his September meeting with Lola and filled in more of the blanks. She had called him again, he said, in October, and invited him to a presentation she was making at an academic convention at the New York Hilton. Her speech was magnificent, Frankel told us, and despite all the professional prohibitions, he began to come into the city to see her from time to time, becoming intimate with her before Thanksgiving. "Does Vi

"He'd break my neck. I suspect this could cost him a few votes in the next election, and that's the bottom line."

Chapman worked him a bit more, and then I tried to move things along to the day of the murder. "After Lola called you, what happened that afternoon?"

"I was the only one who knew she was going to leave her sister's house. Lily was driving her crazy. The histrionics, the crying, the busybody nature of her personality. We had all we could do- A

"So she called you here at the office."

He looked at me quizzically. "Surveillance?"

"Even easier. Telephone records."

"I went back to Lily's neighborhood and waited around the corner. Lola was in great spirits. Felt she'd helped us nail Ivan, and that she would begin to regain a bit of control over her life.

We drove into town and I took her up to Riverside Drive. She had some things she wanted to do at home, and then she was going to meet me, at seven o'clock, for di

We were all silent. Frankel had taken us halfway there, but I didn't believe that he was telling the truth about how he left Lola. I was thinking of the semen-stained sheets, and I'm sure Mike was, too.

"Where did you go? How'd you spend the rest of the afternoon?"

Frankel was fidgeting again. "Let me think a minute. Um, I-I drove down to, um-there are a couple of bookstores on Broadway. I wandered in and out of those. I had some coffee and read a newspaper."

Mike took the pencil he'd been writing with and snapped it in half. "I hate it when people lie to me."

"I don't remember exactly what I did that afternoon. But you don't want me to say I don't remember, so I'm telling you what I would have done. I was wandering around Columbia, I was walking in and out of shops, trying to keep warm and pass the time. It had no significance at the moment because I had no idea anything was wrong. I was just killing time-"

"Or Lola."

"Don't be a horse's ass, Detective. Don't sit in my office and even presume to treat me like I did something wrong." His voice was raised now, shrill and strident. "I never went inside Lola Dakota's apartment last Thursday." Frankel spit each word at us, slowly and angrily.

"Then how come there's seminal fluid all over the sheets on her sofa bed? And how come if you just spit over at me one more time, I'm go

"If there's semen on those sheets, and if it happens to be mine, Detective… let me stop right there. That's a really big 'if,' 'cause Lola and I did not exactly have what I would call an exclusive relationship."

"Maybe we can narrow it down a bit. Coop, how much you wa

"I'm not betting against you, Mr. Chapman."

"What's the point of that?" Bart was furious.